• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Carb Balancer

Share this page

jjbunn

jjbunn

Jedi Knight
Offline
Today I have been cutting new rear interior panels for Harold, and buying new tires. I went to American Tire, and left the wheels with them to have 185/70R14s put on. My wife collected them, and unhappily they have put 195/70R14s on ... which is what I had before, and I think are too large.

So, it's back to American Tire on Monday to fix that!

But the topic of the post is carb balancers. I bought the following on Ebay:
383361061_20eb62525a.jpg


and it arrived without any instructions. It's pretty obvious how it works in general, but I am unsure about the screw adjustment which moves the hemisphere in and out of the ring.

If you've operated one of these before, could you please give me an Idiot's Guide, or point me to info?

Thanks!
 
PM me and I will send you a copy of my instructions.

The adjustment screw is used to center the ball in the tube so you have room to adjust the carbs. As you adjust the ball goes up and sown depending. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/cool.gif
 
Oh this easy, hold it on a carb adjust the front butterfly thing so the bubble is at one of the marks on the glass. Now make the other carb meet that same mark.

Use to have one but found I could do as well with a peice of hose and my ear.
 
Julian, the 195's should only be about .5 inches larger in total diameter. Giving a speedo error of a little more than 2 percent. Not too terrible. But you should still get what you orignally asked for. Unless the 195's are a better tire. Then maybe take 'em for the cheaper tire price. It is their screw up afterall. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
Julian the hemisherical choke on hte Uni Syn is used to set the bubble (or float) at a convenient mark on the tube for one caburetor, then you adjust the other carb to match. You may have to work back and forth between carbs to get them to match at the idle speed that you want.
Cheers,
 
David_DuBois said:
Julian the hemisherical choke on hte Uni Syn is used to set the bubble (or float) at a convenient mark on the tube for one caburetor, then you adjust the other carb to match. You may have to work back and forth between carbs to get them to match at the idle speed that you want.
Cheers,
Click to expand...

Thanks everyone: makes perfect sense!

Regarding the tires: for some reason I thought 185/70s would be significantly smaller in diameter than 195/70 ... in fact the difference in diameter is just 20mm ... right?
 
Each tire manufacturer is a little different. but they should be 'roughly' similar. The tire size calculator that Steve links to is a very cool resource. It does assume that all tires will be the same according to their stated measurements and once in a while you will find some that are very far off.

The first number is the width of the tread are in millimeters so the 195's are 10mm wider than the 185's. The '70' number is the 'aspect ratio'. In other words it shows the percentage of treadwidth that makes up your sidewall height. '70' means that your sidewall height is 70 percent of your treadwidth.

So if you keep widening the treadwidth but don't lower the aspect ratio, then the tire will grow in diameter. For example, to keep an almost identical rolling diameter of your original 185/70R14's but to go to a wider tire one example would be a 195/65R14, another would be a 215/60R14. One gets wider by 10mm, the other gets wider by 30mm but both alternate sizes with wider treadwidths have nearly identical rolling diameters.

You can use that link that Steve provided to illustrate this. The best bet of these numbers being accurate though would be if the tires were all from the same manufacturer. You can also use that calculator to experiment with lus sizing options. A Plus 'One' would be going to a 15" wheel, Plus 'Two' being a 16" wheel.

Will all that being said, you asked for 185/70 and should have gotten 185/70's. Your tires being replaced with what was already there shows lack of communication between the front and back of the tire shop or lack of concern for the customers wishes. The only time I let a tire shop get away with that was when I special ordered some Continental Sport Contacts for my TR6. When I picked up the wheels they didn't have Sport Contacts mounted, they had SUPER Contacts mounted. A tire that was twice as expensive. I had pre-paid and had my paperwork. I brought it to their attention to make sure they didn't have a screwed up inventory or an upset customer expecting Super Contacts and getting Sport Contacts. They admitted they ordered the wrong tire but since it was a screw up in my favor and I didn't mind, everyone was okay with it. If I had ordered and paid for Supers and recieved Sports, they would have been overnighting the correct tires and eating the shipping costs.
 
I think it was partly my fault. I said verbally "185/70R14", but looking at the invoice it says 195/70 ... and I should have checked that before leaving the shop. The guy may have assumed I made a mistake, and that I wanted the same size as were already on the wheels.

I haven't decided if I'm going to take them back yet. Maybe not.

I need to get hold of some hub caps, to replace these:
288137212_bb57262842.jpg


which were on the wheels originally. I'd like some with "MG" on them. Are hub caps like these a standard size? The Rikens were about 2 1/2" in diameter, I think.
 
You can get "blank" hubcaps with a style to your liking, and get MG covers for the caps. These are generally stick-on, but the backing lasts forever. Check out this link at Moss: https://www.mossmotors.com/Shop/ViewProducts.aspx?PlateIndexID=29026&SortOrder=10 . This is the one for rostyles - I'm not 100% sure it's stick-on - and part # 455-377 is for the LE wheels (silver on black). This one is definitely stick-on.

Maybe Tony can hook you up?

R.
 
I have stick-on ones in the centers of the Rostyles on my Midget, I got them from Victoria British...I'll get the part number for you asap. They are about 1" in diameter, chrome MG logo on a black background.
 
VB part # 15-981. $10 for a set of four. I'm a tad embarrassed, they are actually about 1 1/4" in diameter. With this weather, I don't get to see the cars as much as I'd like (no attached garage). I absolutely despise not knowing every intricate detail of the car off the top of my head.

Pic:

 
I measured the diameter of the wheels with the 195/70s in place: 25". Then I went back to American Tire and had them put on the Kumho Power Star 185/70s I had originally wanted. The diameter is now a little under 24" ... about right since I believe the required diameter on a B is 23 1/2".
 
I would definitely prefer larger than stock to smaller so it sounds like you're doing fine. A larger circumference will reduce engine revs on the highway.
 
Back
Top